The Role Of Lexical And Sublexical Features In Chinese Compound Words Recognition

In the process of Chinese reading,the cognition and understanding of vocabulary are fundamental and important.A large number of studies have found that there is lexical decomposition and integration in the process of processing compound words,namely,the decomposition of compound words into morphemes and integrated morpheme information for understanding.In addition to individual factors,the characteristics of the word itself(such as word/morpheme frequency,transparency,morpheme location,etc.)also affect people’s cognition of the word.Most of the previous studies only focus on the effect of one of the features of morpheme on word comprehension,while the other features are controlled and matched experimentally.However,the influence of different lexical features,different positions of morphemes on vocabulary cognition,relative influence,and when(early/late)they play a role in word processing are still unknown.In this paper,the effects of lexical/sublexical features on word cognition and the relative importance of different features in different stages are discussed through behavioral experiments and ERP experiments.Behavior experiment will two-character words whole word frequency,an abstract level,the average number of strokes,the first morpheme frequency,frequency of tail morphemes,first morpheme transparency,tail morpheme transparency and morpheme frequency of interaction and fore and aft morpheme interaction as the fixed effects of transparency,each participant as random effects,the reaction time as the dependent variable,establish linear mixed models(linear mixed model,LMM).The results showed that except for the degree of abstraction and the average number of strokes,the other fixed effects of the model had a significant influence on the reaction time.The whole word frequency,abstraction degree,average stroke number,prefix frequency,suffixes frequency,suffixes frequency,suffixes transparency,suffixes transparency,and the interaction between suffixes frequency and transparency as well as the interaction between suffixes frequency and transparency and suffixes frequency and transparency as fixed effects were then taken as random effects for each subject.Taking the reaction time as the dependent variable,a linear mixing model was established.The results show that the first morpheme position has a significant effect on lexical cognition.The average peak potentials of the three ERP components(N150,P200 and N400)were extracted in ERP experiments,and the various characteristics manipulated in behavioral experiments were regressed with the peaks step by step.The relative importance of different lexical features was investigated by changing the order in which morpheme frequency and transparency were incorporated into the regression model.The results showed that the transparency of endemes was significantly related to the N150 component regardless of the order in which the transparency was included,indicating that the transparency of morphemes had a stable early activation in the cognitive process of words,and was not affected by frequency,stroke and abstraction.Similarly,regardless of the sequence of incorporation of transparency in P200 components,a stable frequency effect will appear in the forebrain region,while a stable transparency effect will appear in the posterior brain region,indicating that the two components play a role at the same time within 200-300 ms,and there is spatial separation.On the N400 component,if the frequency is first included into the model,only significant whole-word and morpheme frequency effects can be found.If transparency is first included in the model,it is found that both transparency and frequency have an impact on the N400.In the later stage of word processing,both lexical/morpheme transparency and frequency play a role,but frequency plays a more important role.In the process of vocabulary processing,the characteristics of both vocabulary and subvocabulary will influence the processing of Chinese double-character words.Moreover,in different time periods,the characteristics of their functions are different,and their relative importance is also different.In the early stage of word processing,morpheme transparency first activates,then both morpheme frequency and transparency play a role and spatial separation occurs,and finally,the whole word frequency,morpheme frequency and transparency both play a role,and the frequency effect is more important.At the same time,it is also verified that there are two parallel pathways in word processing,namely morpheme processing pathway and whole word processing pathway,in which endemes are activated first,followed by the coactivation of head-end morphemes,and finally the integration of whole word.